🪷"Whatever I do is okay"

Grappling with self-doubt and second-guessing

Here’s a new mantra I’m trying out:

Whatever I do is okay.

I mean this as a remedy for self-doubt and second-guessing (not as a license for wantonness, which my religious indoctrination worries about).

There’s a very subtle whisper always in the back of my mind saying things like You’re screwing up and Better not screw up—as though life were under my personal control and everything hinged upon my making the exact “right” choices.

But control is pretend, like the scary monsters in my children’s closet.

What is real is my creature-level existence in each moment. I don’t have to do anything except breathe and exist.

The details will flow from there—and they’ll flow much more smoothly when I’m operating by my instincts (which are honed by my experience, learning, reflections, and reason) than when I’m mindlessly trying to crunch reality into the shape of my will (and my anxiety).

So, note to self:

Calm the heck down—whatever you do, it’s okay.

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a peaceful moment near Seneca Rocks recently